For years now the NATO governments have been attacking Russia through illegal economic blockades they call “sanctions,” have physically attacked Russia through Chechnya, Georgia, and Ukraine, have advanced NATO’s military forces right up to the Russian border, put out endless false stories about Russia’s actions and policies, generated a sewer of anti-Russian propaganda in the media and in NATO government statements, killed Russian officers and pilots trying to counter their proxy terrorists forces in Syria, attacked the Russian consulate in Damascus several times, fabricated stories of crimes, and during the American presidential election and its aftermath have descended into the depths of insanity by accusing Russia of trying to influence that process.

So, their regrets are worth nothing.

It is obvious that this assassination was meant to delay a Turkish-Russian rapprochement, but it was also to punish Russia for its assistance to the government of Syria in liberating Aleppo.

In light of President Obama’s ridiculous statement that he knew President Putin was behind alleged attempts to fix the US election while refusing to offer any evidence of this absurd claim, we must remember his dangerous promise to strike back at Russia in retaliation and must consider whether this was part of that retaliation, for the assassination took place within a few days of Obama making his “a time and place of our choosing” statement.

President Putin, along with President Erdogan referred to the murder “as a provocation aimed at derailing Russia-Turkey ties and the peace process in Syria.” Putin stressed, “We must know who steered the killer’s course.”

Since the only party conceivably interested in or could benefit from such a provocation is NATO and its allies, Russia is really saying that they are behind this, though caution is their watchword and the investigation has only begun. The Syrian Peoples’ Assembly in Damascus stated Tuesday that, “This cowardly act of terror is a stain on the forehead of the countries supporting terrorism and demands legal accountability at the international level.

If the Turks convince the Russians they had nothing to do with it, that it was connected to the FETO organisation whose leader Fetullah Gulen is in the United States, living under American protection, though he has denied it, or to the terrorist organisations they have been supporting in Syria, and the western intelligence and military services supporting them, then it is likely to push Russia, Turkey and Iran, closer together against a common enemy.

And, indeed, this appears to be the case as those three nations went ahead with talks in Moscow on Tuesday to forge a way ahead to a peaceful resolution of the war in Syria."

We need only remind ourselves of their attempt to assassinate the Chinese ambassador Pan Zhan Lin in Belgrade in the NATO attack on Yugoslavia in 1999. Five guided missiles were fired at the Chinese embassy from an American aircraft. The one aimed at the ambassador’s room luckily did not explode but 4 other diplomatic staff were killed and 20 injured. Various reasons have been suggested for US bombing of the Chinese embassy but the Chinese ambassador stated later that it was meant to break the will of the Yugoslav government by making it clear to its allies that continuing to support the Yugoslav government was dangerous.

One has to wonder further whether the assassination was a set up for something else, false flag operations in the Baltic or elsewhere conducted by NATO forces but to be blamed on a Russia intent on revenge for the murder of its ambassador. Nothing is beyond the pale for NATO and their secret services."

A team of 18 specialists from the Russian Foreign Ministry and Investigative Committee have headed to Turkey to help investigate the murder of Russian Ambassador Andrey Karlov, presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said."

REUTERS REPORTED: Turkish police have detained six people over the killing of Russia's ambassador, security sources said, widening an investigation to relatives of the off-duty policeman.

His mother, father, sister and two other relatives were held in the western province of Aydin, while his flatmate (also a policeman) in Ankara was also detained, security sources said.

Karlov's remains were sent back to Moscow from Turkey after a ceremony at the airport in Ankara."

KARLOV WAS ASSASSINATED IN VIEW OF THOSE PRESENT IN THAT GALLERY AND IN VIEW OF ALL WHO HAVE SEEN THE FOOTAGE OF THAT HORRIFIC MOMENT.

IT IS INTERESTING TO NOTE THE 01:11 GMT ENTRY ON THAT TIMELINE WHICH READS:01:11 GMT

"The US State Department has dismissed claims of having had any involvement in the murder of Andrey Karlov.

Earlier on Tuesday, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told the US Secretary of State John Kerry that Fetullah Organization (FETO) was behind Karlov's assassination.

"It's a ludicrous claim, absolutely false, there's no basis of truth in it whatsoever," State Department spokesman John Kirby told reporters.

American based cleric Fetullah Gulen and his FETO group are accused by Ankara of staging the failed July 15 coup. The Turkish government claims it continues to infiltrate Turkish institutions, namely the military, police and judiciary, to form what Ankara calls a "parallel state".

"The secretary in his conversation with the foreign minister did raise his concerns about some of the rhetoric coming out of Turkey with respect to American involvement/support, tacit or otherwise, for this unspeakable assassination yesterday because of the presence of Mr. Gulen here in the United States," Kirby said."

ERDOGAN WAS QUICK TO JUMP TO THAT ACCUSATION AND FINGER-POINTING.HE SEEMED TOO QUICK, AS IF THE WHOLE THING HAD BEEN REHEARSED.IT MADE ME WONDER IF HE WAS COMPLICIT IN THIS ASSASSINATION SINCE HE WAS AND IS AGAINST ASSAD CONTINUING AS LEADER OF SYRIA AND SINCE HE SEEMS TO BE THE LACKEY FOR ANY BIG NATION WHO SEEMS INTERESTED IN MAKING IT LUCRATIVE FOR HIM TO PLAY ON THEIR SIDE.

COULD SUCH A COMPLICITY BE THE REASON THE ASSASSIN WAS ALLOWED ARMED INTO THE GALLERY, THEN ALLOWED TO FIRE AT LEAST 8 SHOTS WITHOUT ANY TURKISH SECURITY SHOOTING AT HIM OR ATTEMPTING TO STOP HIM, AND THEN WAS ALLOWED TO MAKE HIS SHORT SPEECH AND LEAVE THE BUILDING UNCHALLENGED BY TURKISH SECURITY?

NONE OF THAT MAKES LOGICAL SENSE WHEN ARMED SECURITY FORCES WERE PRESENT THERE TO SAFEGUARD THE RUSSIAN AMBASSADOR.

LET US ALSO NOT FORGET THAT "THE MADMAN OF TURKEY", ERDOGAN, HAS BEEN ACCUSED OF STAGING THE COUP HE CLAIMED TRIED TO DETHRONE HIM, OF USING A FAKE COUP ATTEMPT TO MAINTAIN AND INCREASE HIS POWER BY KILLING SOME OF THOSE OPPOSED TO HIM.

[Well, if the U.S. was not behind the coup, they should have been. It would have made it about 80 such coup attempts against foreign leaders in just my lifetime.]

ERDOGAN'S FINGER-POINTING AT AMERICA AS HAVING ANY PART IN THE ASSASSINATION DREW FIRE FROM SECRETARY OF STATE, JOHN KERRY:"John Kerry's spokesman says the U.S. Secretary of State has raised concerns about some of the rhetoric coming out of Turkey with respect to American involvement or support, tacit or otherwise, for this unspeakable assassination."

He then pulled out a gun, shouted “Allahu Akbar” and fired at least eight shots.After firing at the ambassador, the man shouted in Turkish: “Don’t forget Aleppo. Don’t forget Syria. Unless our towns are secure, you won’t enjoy security. Only death can take me from here. Everyone who is involved in this suffering will pay a price.”

He also shouted in Arabic: “We are the one who pledged allegiance to Muhammad, to wage jihad.”

The chilling attack on Monday evening, which was captured on video, appeared to be a backlash against Russian military involvement in the Syrian civil war.

[LIKE THE MURDER OF THE AMBASSADOR IN BENGHAZI WAS "BACKLASH OF A VIDEO"? THAT WAS DISPROVEN, AS PERHAPS THIS WILL BE.]

"APPEARED TO BE A BACKLASH AGAINST RUSSIAN INVOLVEMENT"?WHAT ABOUT TURKISH INVOLVEMENT?WAS THE MAN PERHAPS ANGRY AT ERDOGAN FOR HIS INVOLVEMENT?

OR, AS ONE EX-AMERICAN DIPLOMAT INSINUATED, WERE SOME INSIDE THAT SECURITY FORCE WHO WERE SUPPOSED TO BE GUARDING KARLOV COMPLICIT IN THIS MURDER?

HE ALSO SUGGESTED THAT, BECAUSE THE AMERICAN EMBASSY IN ANKARA ALSO REPORTED SHOTS FIRED THERE JUST 2 HOURS LATER, THAT THIS MAY HAVE BEEN THE WORK OF SOME "EXTREMIST GROUP", SOMETHING THAT ERDOGAN HAS BEEN TRYING TO SELL TO THE MEDIA SINCE THE ASSASSINATION.

THAT A TURKISH POLICEMAN ASSASSINATED THE RUSSIAN AMBASSADOR SEEMS, IN ITSELF, TO BE A 'STATEMENT' AGAINST RUSSIA, BUT WAS IT?

Russian president, Vladimir Putin, called the killing a “provocation” aimed at sabotaging a rapprochement between Moscow and Ankara and attempts to resolve the conflict in Syria.

Putin said that Russian officials would be dispatched to Ankara to investigate the killing. “We have to know who directed the hand of the killer,” he said.

His comments were echoed by Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov who said, following a phone call with his Turkish counterpart, Mevlut Cavusgolu, that those behind the shooting “were seeking to derail the process of normalising Russia-Turkey ties, primarily with a goal to prevent an efficient fight against terrorism in Syria.”

WAIT!EXCUSE ME, BUT HOW THE HELL CAN THEY KNOW THE MOTIVATION?

THE KILLER, THE ASSASSIN, THAT LOW-LIFE SWINE, SHOT THIS MAN TO DEATH WITH CAMERAS ROLLING! WHAT HE SAID, DOESN'T THAT SAY IT ALL?

HOW CAN WE EVER KNOW WHAT HIS MOTIVATION WAS OR IF ANYONE WAS "DIRECTING THE HAND OF THE KILLER"?HE WAS SHOT AND KILLED.DEAD MEN DON'T TALK!HOW COMPLETELY CONVENIENT!

His name was Mevlut Mert Altıntas and he was a Turk and he was a policeman. He was an officer in Ankara’s riot police squad, who was born in 1994 and graduated from Izmir police academy.

Security guards at the scene had said that the killer showed a police ID to enter the gallery.The shooter’s family home in the western province of Aydin was later searched and his mother, father and sister were detained, according to Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency.

Altıntas’s house in Ankara was raided and his roommate, also a police officer, was also taken into custody, Anadolu News said.

The Russian president cancelled a planned trip to the theatre on Monday evening and called an urgent meeting with his foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, and the heads of the security services.

In a bizarre coincidence, Putin had planned to see the play Woe from Wit, written by the poet and diplomat Alexander Griboyedov, who was murdered by a mob when ambassador to Tehran in 1829.

Konstantin Kosachev, the head of the foreign relations committee in Russia’s upper house of parliament, said the repercussions of the killing on Russian-Turkish relations would depend on the details of the incident: “It could have been a planned terrorist attack by extremists or it could be the work of a lone maniac. After we know, we’ll be able to understand how this will affect Russian-Turkish relations.”

Turkish security officials and Erdoğan supporters have alleged that the gunman was linked to the exiled Turkish cleric Fethullah Gülen, whom they accuse of orchestrating a failed coup in July. A spokesman for Gülen described the accusation as “laughable” and told Reuters that it was intended to cover up for lax security.

ANOTHER INCIDENT AT THE AMERICAN EMBASSY LATER THAT DAY...Later on Monday a gunman had attempted to enter the US embassy in Ankara and fired eight shots into the air. The man was overpowered by security guards and taken into custody by police. No one was hurt in the incident. The embassy said its missions in Ankara, Istanbul and the southern city of Adana would be “closed for normal operations on Tuesday.”

WHY DIDN'T SECURITY GUARDS OVERPOWER AND ARREST THE ASSASSIN AT THAT ART GALLERY?SEEMS LIKE THEY OR THE 'SPECIAL FORCES' SHOULD HAVE BEEN ABLE TO DO THAT, IF THEY HAD WANTED TO.

HAD THEY TAKEN HIM ALIVE INTO CUSTODY, WE MIGHT HAVE LEARNED FAR MORE THAN WE WILL EVER LEARN NOW.

The ambassador had been part of discussions with Turkey that led to an evacuation of east Aleppo getting under way late last week. Russia and Iran engineered the deal allowing civilians and rebel fighters in Aleppo to be evacuated, with Turkey acting as the brokers for the Syrian opposition in the discussion.

In the weeks running up to the fall of east Aleppo, the Russians, Turks and Iranians have increasingly been working together on Syria’s future, to the exclusion of western powers, including the US, as well as the Gulf states, normally the sponsors of the Syrian opposition.

Many Syrian opposition figures fear they will be marginalised by the Putin initiative and his new triumvirate.

In his time as ambassador, Karlov presided over a rocky period in Russo-Turkish relations. When Turkey shot down a Russian fighter plane in November 2015, Moscow responded furiously, with Putin calling it “a stab in the back by the accomplices of terrorists”.

ERDOGAN IS NOT ONLY AN ACCOMPLICE OF TERRORISTS, HE HAS LONG BEEN ONE HIMSELF.

THE TWO THINGS THAT PERPLEX ME MOST ABOUT THIS ENTIRE SCENARIO IS WHY A MAN WITH THE INTELLIGENCE OF VLADIMIR PUTIN WOULD ALIGN HIMSELF WITH A MANIAC AND A "NOBODY" LIKE ERDOGAN, A MAN EVERY WORLD LEADER SEES AS A "SNAKE IN THE GRASS", AND WHY ALIGN WITH IRAN?

Griboyedov's body was dragged through the streets and hideously mutilated. According to one historian's account, “he was later identified only by the deformity of the little finger on his left hand. Only one member of the Russian mission survived; 37 others died."I CAN SEE THAT TIME MIGHT HAVE HEALED THOSE WOUNDS, BUT THE SHEER INSANITY OF THE IRANIAN AYATOLLAH... WHY ALIGN WITH THAT?

AND THE WOUNDS, OR AS PUTIN HIMSELF CALLED IT THE "BACK-STABBING" FROM TURKEY'S MADMAN ARE FAR FRESHER, SO WHY?"Earlier this year, Putin and Erdogan reconciled, after Erdoğan wrote a letter of apology to Putin. The two leaders met at a summit in August amid a distinct thaw in relations and in what resembles a loose anti-western alliance.

Russian actions in Syria have angered many Turks.

In recent days, protests in Istanbul against Russian involvement in Syria and Aleppo, including a demonstration in front of the Russian consulate on the city’s famed İstiklal Avenue, have occurred on a regular basis. The protests have often had a significant Islamist contingent.

Ozbilici, who works for the Associated Press, describes what happened:

"The exhibition, titled “From Kaliningrad to Kamchatka, from the eyes of travellers” featured photos from Russia’s westernmost Baltic region to the Kamchatka Peninsula, in the east. I decided to attend simply because it was on my way home from the Ankara office.

When I arrived, the speeches had already begun. After Russian ambassador Andrei Karlov began to make his address, I moved closer to photograph him, thinking the pictures would come in useful for stories on Turkish-Russian relations.

He was speaking softly and — from what I could tell — lovingly about his homeland, stopping occasionally to allow the translator to relay his words in Turkish. I remember thinking how calm and humble he seemed.

The event seemed routine, the opening of an exhibit of photographs of Russia. So when a man in a dark suit and tie pulled out a gun, I was stunned and thought it was a theatrical flourish.

The gunshots, at least eight of them, were loud in the pristine art gallery. Pandemonium erupted. People screamed, hid behind columns and under tables and lay on the floor.

The ambassador’s body lay on the floor, just yards away from me. I couldn’t see any blood around him; I think he may have been shot in the back.

It took me a few seconds to realise what had happened: A man had died in front of me; a life had disappeared before my eyes.

I moved back and to the left, while the gunman — later identified as police officer Mevlut Mert Altintas — gestured with his gun at people cowering on the right side of the room.

He also shouted “Allahu akbar,” but I couldn’t understand the rest of what he said in Arabic.

As my mind raced, I saw that the man was agitated — and yet, he was, strangely, in control of himself. He shouted at everyone to stand back. Security guards ordered us to vacate the hall and we left.

Ambulances and armored vehicles soon arrived and the police operation was launched.

The gunman was later killed in a shootout.

When I returned to the office to edit my photos, I was shocked to see that the shooter was actually standing behind the ambassador as he spoke. Like a friend, or a bodyguard."

THE TRUTH OF THIS MATTER MAY NEVER BE KNOWN, BUT EVEN IF EVERYTHING COMES TO LIGHT IT WILL NOT BRING BACK THIS STOLEN LIFE, NOR ERASE THE GRIEF OF KARLOV'S WIDOW, SHOWN BELOW, COLLAPSED ON HIS FLAG-DRAPED COFFIN.

"ALLAHU AKBAR"?

HARDLY.NO, THERE IS NOTHING GOOD IN SUCH MURDERS, AND CERTAINLY NO GOD IN THE HEART OF THOSE WHO CARRY THEM OUT.

OBAMA AND THOSE WHO MANIPULATE HIM HAVE LESS THAN A MONTH TO PUSH THE GREAT BEAR, RUSSIA, AGAINST THE WALL YET AGAIN AND PERHAPS CREATE THE TYPE OF CRISIS IN THE MIDDLE EAST THAT WILL MANDATE OBAMA REMAINING IN OFFICE, KEEPING TRUMP OUT.

I HAVE WRITTEN MANY TIMES THAT I SEE THIS PROXY WAR IN SYRIA AS A WAY FOR THE POWERS THAT BE TO ACCOMPLISH THREE THINGS:(1) KEEP OBAMA IN OFFICE, AND (2) PUSH THE FIGHTING IN SYRIA INTO ISRAEL, THE SAME ISRAEL THAT OBAMA WOULD LIKE TO SEE DESTROYED, OR AT LEAST SUBJECTED TO A "TWO-STATE SOLUTION", AND